Point/Counterpoint: Sergeant Major

The following is a Point/Counterpoint concerning whether the rank of Sergeant Major should be continued to be utilized in the United States Armed Forces. 2nd Lt. Matthew McGobbel will be presenting the point and Sgt. Maj. John Gibbons will be authoring the counterpoint.

POINT: Hey Sergeant Major, you have a second? I’m here to tell you all the things that your first sergeants are apparently afraid to.

Yeah it’s cool, you can stand at ease. I know it’s tough being a balding, middle-aged man with destroyed knees from too many combat jumps and a weird, froggy voice somewhere between Mr. Toad and a half-assed impersonation of R. Lee Ermey. I know that you hate coming home every day to a 400-pound wife, teenage kids that hate you and a dog that pees on the rug. And I certainly know how much you love motorcycle safety and swimming in designated areas, because you keep us past 1800 with a no-kidding 60 minute safety brief! And on the Thursday of a four-day weekend no less!

Heck, just this morning you walked past my platoon doing kettle-bell PT and said with self-satisfied sarcasm: “Well I don’t remember reading that in the battalion physical fitness plan.” You know what also isn’t in the battalion physical fitness plan? Me with your daughter, doin’ the dirty. Hey-O!

But seriously, old timer, just because you have a dysfunctional home life and work is the only place that you can find solace from that nagging harridan of a spouse, doesn’t mean that me, my boys in the LT mafia, and Joe Scruffy want to spend any time listening to you.

Look here, you shouldn’t even be safety briefing me, I graduated from the Academy, which means I’m a safe, responsible adult member of society. We don’t go out and do stupid stuff like sleep with enlisted or drive drunk. Except when we do, but that’s not relevant.

COUNTERPOINT: Hey cherry, a mere second is not nearly enough time to un-fuck the massive cluster of ass-hattery you leave in your wake. I’ll stand at ease the day you manage not to navigate an entire convoy of MRAPs into the nearest canal. I do hate coming home to your 400-pound wife. Tell that broad to leave me alone already, I’m fresh out of mayonnaise and Hot Pockets.

For tomorrow’s PT why don’t you stow those Russian kettle-bells in your packs and go on a ruck march as if you were in the goddamned armed forces of the United States? For fuck’s sake, your platoon PT plan looks like some kind of communist circle jerk. Next week you’ll be doing hot yoga in a double dog pose while sniffin’ each other’s butts.

I don’t have any daughters either. I have two pothead sons and they both have syphilis and need hair cuts in a bad way.

El-Tee, your academy pedigree merely earmarks you as someone with a highly developed sense of superiority and privilege. No one in the uniformed services is in more need of an ongoing, redundant safety brief. Never has anyone been as incapable of simple obedience than a bunch of jocks fresh out of the hard-on academy.

How can someone so meticulous in the field about his Gucci tactical douchery somehow magically forget to don gloves as soon as his ass touches the seat of a motorcycle?

My home life is in shambles because any time off I have is spent on a Blackberry explaining to Higher why a platoon commander failed to remind his troops not to act like a band of Viking savages looting and raping their way across the local community.

All weekend long I just stare at the phone daring it to ring, knowing the root of every conceivable issue that plagues the modern military is a 2nd Lt. who just needs his shit pushed in with my boot heel.